Justin was born in early August. As soon as he arrived, I started worrying about kindergarten. My sister has three kids, all born in the late summer, and she and my brother-in-law made the decision to have their two boys wait until they were six to start kindergarten. My brother's son also has a summer birthday, but he started kindergarten when he was five years old, and has struggled in school. I wanted to learn from their examples and mistakes. So true to my usual fashion, I buried my head in the sand and told myself I had years to figure out whether to enroll him at age five or six, and promptly forgot about it.
Aside from deciding whether or not to redshirt him for kindergarten, I didn't figure I had many decisions to make. I'd always planned on public school education for our children, just like my husband and I experienced. I grew up attending a rival district from the one where we currently live, and I always sort of thought we'd be living somewhere else when my kids started school. I didn't want them to attend the public schools here just because I still carry the rivalry that I remember from my high school days. As it happens, we didn't win the lottery and we didn't move to a bigger house in a "better" school district, so there was another wrinkle in my unwritten plan, hidden in the back of my mind. No matter, I thought, the district is still rated "Excellent". Enter the tough economy....and suddenly, school levies weren't being passed by the voters, programs were cut, teachers and administrators laid off, etc. For each levy that failed, another blow fell that resulted in something being cut or eliminated, and I started to worry whether the schools would be able to remain "Excellent" without so many resources.
"Never mind for now," I told myself, "he's not going to kindergarten till he's six. We have lots more time to think about it." Even at his four year well check, I declined the vaccines he'd need before kindergarten, still thinking I had some time to finalize the grand plan.
Well, my son Justin is quite the firecracker. Things very rarely go as planned when it comes to that child. He's a very spirited, imaginative little boy, and he gets in trouble as often as I blink my eyes. It's worse when he's bored. He's been attending some form of daycare/preschool/pre-kindergarten since he was an infant, because he needs stuff to DO. He's had his fair share of trouble-making at his school over the past 5 years, and his dad and I have had several "talks" with his teachers and director about how to best keep him challenged so that he will behave. I finally had the epiphany that it would be in his best interest to start school at five. My husband agreed and then we looked at the calendar and realized that it was late February, and registration takes place in March. Procrastination wins again! I had less than a couple weeks to decide WHERE the best place would be for Justin to attend kindergarten.
Conversation with neighbors quickly enlightened us to the changes made to the kindergarten program in our public school system. Rather than attending half or full days 5 days a week, cuts in the budget called for a creative solution. Kindergarteners would be divided in two groups, with half of them attending full days on Mondays and Wednesdays, while the other half attending full days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's some kind of funky formula for which group attends on what Fridays. It was all much too convoluted for my overtaxed brain. We quickly looked into the four Catholic school programs closest to us for their offerings. The information was really overwhelming; there were so many things to consider. Because we don't currently attend church on a regular basis, we had to become okay with a religious-based education for our kids if that was the type of school we ultimately chose. It became clear pretty quickly which programs we could afford and which ones we didn't want to pursue.
Ultimately, we narrowed it down to two choices: the public kindergarten, or the St. Veronica parish school. Since we'd already eliminated the other three Catholic schools, cost wasn't a factor in our final decision between St. Veronica and the public school. We compared the kindergarten curriculum offered by both programs, the school schedules, and considered the opportunities and programs available for students as they move up in elementary school. The right choice for us, especially for Justin, became readily apparent. After we made up our minds, we had to scramble to get the registration packet completed and turned in for consideration. We sweated a few bullets as we waited for an answer whether or not he'd be accepted into the program, and what we'd do if he wasn't. Thankfully, we got an acceptance letter a week or so later. It was one of those moments when you feel as if the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders -- we had made the right choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment